VIENNA, _April 22d, 1857_.
208.
HUMBOLDT TO VARNHAGEN.
BERLIN, _May 28th, 1857_.
I am uneasy, my dear friend, about Weimar. The Grand Duke is everywhere,
except in Weimar “Athens.” What will become of our warmly recommended?
Has he been spoken to by the eloquent Prince? You have not wished me joy
to the order bestowed upon me by the “Hamburg Moniteur” as Grand
Officier, which Guizot gave me fifteen years ago. Raumer’s conversation
is very interesting; he was at Pesth, at Milan, dined with the Archduke,
and called on Cavour. He has again returned with something of a
hankering after the Austrian régime in Lombardy, like the Republicans
when they visit the United States, where arsenic, the torture, or
Fremont-worshipping negroes, cause a criminal colic to Cuba-mad
Buchanan. _Multa sunt eadem sed aliter._ The Russian Minister of
Enlightenment, Noroff, who had a leg shot off by the thigh at Borodino,
and who has carried his wooden leg to Jerusalem and Egypt, and even to
the top of the Pyramids, is here, and attends as a guest, sitting among
the students, the lectures of Johannes Mueller and Diderici. His
companion, the young Count Ouwaroff, the author of a great work on
Hellenic antiquities in the Chersonese, attends the lectures of Michelet
and Boeckh. Both are very agreeable men. The former is accused of being
over spiritual, but not intolerant; both are much pleased with the
freedom of our student life, and with the absence of policemen from our
university building. I did not care to disabuse the mind of the
one-legged Raumer, as they will leave soon. _Decipitur mundus._
With old affection, your tiresome
A. V. HUMBOLDT.
NOTE BY VARNHAGEN.—“The United States, where arsenic, the torture, or
Fremont-worshipping negroes, cause a criminal colic to Cuba-mad
Buchanan.” This passage alludes to the circumstance, that at a hotel
in Washington, the President, and many others with him, were seized
with a violent colic after dinner, so that suspicions of poison were
entertained; and it was only after a legal investigation that the
whole was found to have been caused by impure water.
BY THE TRANSLATOR.—“Fremont-worshipping negroes” must refer to the
slaves who were reported to be in insurrection soon after the
accession of President Buchanan, in Tennessee or Kentucky, and of
whom it was said, that they believed Fremont and all his men to be
encamped at the bottom of the Cumberland river, ready to emerge for
their delivery.
209.
HUMBOLDT TO VARNHAGEN.
POTSDAM, THURSDAY. _In haste,
June 4th, 1857._
A truly grand ducal letter, indelicate without excuse, cutting off every
prospect, as he said “Au revoir” on going away, after the preconcerted
shibboleth. Silence as to the costs, which are unnecessarily heavy. You
and I shall cease “steering in the ocean of investigation,” as
acquaintance with the party proposed does not suffice to determine him.
I have a mind to answer somewhat mockingly. It may be agreeable to you,
my esteemed friend, to enrich your archives with an autography of
Thiers, who is now an Orleanist. Duvergier de Hauranne also came here
after a pilgrimage to Eisenach. The Duchess is going to England.
Preserve both letters, the bad one and that which is simply good.
Yours,
A. V. HT.
On Saturday I expect to come to Berlin with the King. The Queen is
coming on Monday.
210.
CHARLES ALEXANDER, GRAND DUKE OF SAXE-WEIMAR, TO HUMBOLDT.
ETTERSBURG, _June 1, 1857_.
Your Excellency has probably learned already, that I have seen,
repeatedly conversed with, but finally refrained from appointing ——. He
interested me, I may say he pleased me, but I thought I could not
recognise in him the secretary who could not only keep me informed of
everything of moment in the spheres of science, art, and literature, but
should attend to my correspondence, my intercourse, verbal and social,
in various languages; and to appoint him at hazard I feared to venture.
To retreat was, then, the only resource. I did so in order to steer
further in the ocean of investigation. Whether you will continue, even
in this matter, to cast upon me, as a star of good omen, the light of
the goodness ever extended to me—is what I may be permitted to wish, but
can hardly be permitted to hope—although we agreed that the acquaintance
of the party was not to include his selection.
I shall now retire into various forest solitudes of Thuringia with a
number of books, among which I anticipate particular pleasure from the
perusal of Barth’s itinerary. I bow in reverence before such endurance
in the love of science, before such indomitable energy; how much the
more must I do so before his prototype, before you? Remaining your most
devoted, most grateful servant,